Cunningham | Quill Architects is delighted to announce we are a 2022 Faith & Form International Awards for Religious Architecture & Art Award Winner. The Sacred Places / Partners for Sacred Places - Faith & Form and Interfaith Design (American Institute of Architects) international design awards program recognizes and honors the best in architecture, liturgical design and art for religious spaces.
During this year’s competition, The Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Alexandria, Virginia, impressed a panel of jurors and claimed an award in the category of Religious Architecture: New Facilities. This category recognizes new construction, including houses of worship, chapels, temples, mosques, and other sacred spaces across the world. Criteria for this category include excellence in design, functional planning, and sensitivity to the building's context and supporting the mission of a religion and religious traditions. Not only did The Episcopal Church of the Resurrection reconstruct the context of the site through creating an ecologically diverse, walkable human-scaled community, but the project also upholds the congregation’s commitment to affordable housing and social equity with respect to vulnerable communities. Through resourceful creativity, the design team was able to incorporate a new 5,000 square foot church co-located with 113 family-oriented units of new affordable housing (The Spire) while preserving the parish’s original Memorial Garden on the south end of the parcel.
“This church sends a message about a parish partnering with affordable housing. The theme is prayer united with good works. It is a magnificent effort of making a small piece of the composition a sanctuary amid the housing complex. The church is balanced in its small scale. This project of joining housing with worship is a model for the future,” said the jury.
We want to thank the 2022 Jury Panel and Chair, Faith & Form magazine, Partners for Sacred Places and Interfaith Design (formerly the Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture -IFRAA) for this incredible honor as one of 12 selected from over 52 total entries within the competition. We would also like to especially thank our amazing colleagues and Episcopal Church of the Resurrection client.
Please reference the Partners for Sacred Places 2022 Faith & Form Awards website for The Episcopal Church of the Resurrection’s own webpage (https://sacredplaces.org/2022-faith-form-award-the-episcopal-church-of-the-resurrection/) and share the news of this award. Be on the lookout for the publication of the awards in the Spring / Summer 2023 issue of Sacred Places magazine. The Episcopal Church of the Resurrection will also be recognized through the Interfaith Design Awards exhibit during the 2023 AIA Conference on Architecture in San Francisco, California.